Mobile nodes may automatically arrange themselves according to certain techniques to form a desired pattern. For example, mobile sensors may arrange themselves in a regular lattice pattern to operate as a phased-array sensor. According to one technique for arranging mobile nodes, mobile nodes use simple local control laws in order to form and maintain coherent group movement. According to another technique, mobile nodes orient themselves with respect to a reference frame, determine vacant positions of a pattern, and then move to fill in the vacant positions. According to another technique, mobile nodes are repulsed or attracted by their neighboring mobile nodes by an artificial gravity to arrange the nodes.
Certain techniques, however, generally do not yield sufficiently accurate relative positions between mobile nodes. Other techniques are not effective in achieving a regular pattern from an initially random distribution of nodes, or are not effective in forming a large regularly-spaced lattice pattern. Some techniques may result in a large number of local minima, where multiple mobile nodes are vying for the same location or multiple forces prevent a mobile node from assuming the correct position.
Known techniques may have difficulty forming precise patterns with a large number of mobile nodes. Accordingly, known techniques for arranging mobile nodes may be insufficient in certain situations.